SunPower plans to build a new solar cell factory, a move that reverses the trend of solar manufacturers shuttering factories to deal with an over supply of solar equipment worldwide that began in 2011.

The Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma County, Arizona — which is one of the world’s largest solar panel farms — is now two thirds completed, according to the owners and developer of the project, NRG Energy, MidAmerican Solar and First Solar.

Electric car charging company Ecotality has filed a lawsuit against California regulators to attempt to halt a deal that includes power company NRG investing $120 million into building an electric car charging network in California, reports the San Jose Mercury News, and we’ve confirmed with Ecotality.

A decade-old claim with a predecessor to NRG Energy, Dynegy, over power contracts during the state’s energy crisis, will turn into a $120 million settlement fund to invest in building out an electric car charging network in California.

Will electric car charging stations be the case of ‘if you build it, he will come?’ The folks at NRG Energy, and its electric vehicle charging network project eVgo, certainly hope so — particularly when it comes to the fast DC chargers that it’s installing in Dallas.

Clean power giant NRG Energy has mostly been building a solar empire based on large centralized solar farms, but it’s keenly interested in the distributed solar market. That explains the company’s announcement that it has bought a project developer Solar Power Partners.

BrightSource Energy is still building its first solar farm, but the company already is steaming ahead with the third, 810 MW project called Rio Mesa, for which the company said Friday it has applied for approval from the California Energy Commission.

Clean power giant NRG Energy will partner on a vehicle-to-grid project that was developed at the University of Delaware and will use parked electric vehicles as grid batteries, helping stabilize the grid, and offering electric vehicle owners money.

Solyndra’s bankruptcy has shined a harsh spotlight on a federal loan guarantee program, and that spotlight now includes a company that’s in better financial health than Solyndra. First Solar announced Thursday it won’t get a billion-dollar loan guarantee for a California solar project.

Greentech has been like few other sectors in terms of its high reliance on government support. But, at the same time, a variety of companies are finding that accepting government support can sometimes be the wrong choice.

Earlier this week figures from the latest MoneyTree report found that VC funding for web startups has reached a 10-year high. Contrast that with the funding figures from Dow Jones, which found that venture investment in the energy sector dropped by more than half.

Three-wheeled electric-car startup Aptera has already delayed the launch of its car and has discussed restructuring and moving its manufacturing out of California. But it looks like the company is not completely down for the count: According to a filing, Aptera has raised $2.5 million in debt.

On Wednesday morning energy software startup Hara plans to announce that it’s raised another $25 million from new strategic investors, including the collaboration of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips (called Energy Technology Ventures), as well as the investing arm of Japanese conglomerate Itochu.

A whole lot has changed since we rounded up the solar farms that are planned for the deserts of California and Arizona, from farms changing hands, to the DOE handing out loan guarantees. Here’s 7 of the solar farms that are being built in Southwestern deserts.

BrightSource Energy has stopped working on phases 2 and 3 of the Ivanpah solar project –- which includes investors such as Google and NRG Energy –- after finding more desert tortoises on the project site than previously anticipated.

It’s a double-whopper: The federal government is offering the largest loan guarantee commitment yet to what will be the world’s largest proposed solar farm. Blythe Solar is set to get $2.1 billion in loan guarantees to build part of a 1,000MW plant in California.

Solar cell developer Suniva , which recently decided to suspend effort to secure a federal loan guarantee for a new factory, has raised about $94.4 million in equity out of a $115 million goal, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

At a packed room at a solar factory, Department of Energy Chief Steven Chu announced that the DOE has awarded a conditional commitment for a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to a solar farm that will be built by SunPower and owned by power company NRG Energy.

The future of the green technology industry rests on consumers, and a big part of that will be how consumers embrace electric vehicles, said David Crane, CEO of power company NRG Energy at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference in New York City on Wednesday.

The DOE has offered a $967 million loan guarantee for the Agua Caliente Solar project, a 290 MW photovoltaic facility that will be built in Yuma County, Arizona, will be developed by NRG Energy and will use First Solar panels.

For the first time, power company NRG Energy and its utility Reliant Energy are making a showing at the massive gadget love-fest CES. Why? As Reliant Energy President Jason Few told me, this is the beginning of the “digitization of the power grid.”

NRG looks to be trying out a vertical green energy play from generation to consumer, combining its fossil-fuel-based electricity, its wind and solar power, and it’s green consumer strategy. Will it work?

If you were wondering how solar thermal startup BrightSource was going to get its flagship solar project in the California desert built (well, after that whole DOE loan guarantee thing), here’s how: power company NRG Energy.

NRG Energy just scooped up a portfolio of nine solar development projects in California and Arizona. Through subsidiary NRG Solar, the New Jersey-based power producer has bought the projects for an undisclosed price from US Solar Ventures Holdings.

NRG Energy’s EV chief Michael Harrigan explains at our Green:Net conference how the power company is getting ready for an influx of electric vehicles on the grid. The city of Houston will be a test bed for EV technology — if they build it, will they come?